Newmarket education advocate Shameela Shakeel said she did not feel her past comments on Israel and Palestine would matter much for the election campaign.
The former Newmarket-Aurora Liberal nominee was taken out of the vetting process for what she suspects were social media posts critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestine. She then volunteered to co-run the local NDP campaign, with the local party supporting her and accepting her previous critiques.
But after an April 27 article in the Sun-line of newspapers about her positions on Israel and Palestine — which quoted heavily from NewmarketToday stories — things changed. The NDP ousted her soon after the story ran.
“I’m disappointed and tired,” she said. “I expected that somebody would say something at some point. I didn’t think it would lead to this outcome.”
Shakeel has faced criticism over a couple of choice positions. She expressed support for Toronto-based educator Javier Dávila, who shared a resource list of materials highlighting Palestinian perspectives in 2021 on the conflict with Israel but faced criticism for a few of the links containing antisemitic tropes. A Toronto District School Board report said three or more links contained materials that supported antisemitic tropes. But the report also noted Dávila’s list disclaimed he did not check every link and that the list also has resources calling out antisemitism. The board suspended the teacher and investigated but ultimately reinstated him.
Shakeel has also faced critique from a board member for the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation for a Tweet responding to Minister of Education Stephen Lecce. She said the terrorist group Hamas was established in 1987 and originally funded by Israel and that Palestinians have been suffering and illegally occupied under the State of Israel since 1948. But condemnation of the position is not universal, and the advocacy group Independent Jewish Voices of Canada — which also supported Dávila — said it found nothing wrong with the comment.
The Newmarket-Aurora NDP declined an interview and did not respond to a submitted list of questions.
In a statement, candidate Denis Heng said that Shakeel “was a volunteer and who will no longer be with my campaign.”
In cancelling an interview after agreeing to one, he said it was “in an effort not to detract from our campaign efforts of providing Newmarket-Aurora residents with a positive choice to remove Doug Ford and the Conservatives from office.”
But Heng and local NDP brass told NewmarketToday April 21 they were not concerned by her stances on Israel and Palestine. Heng had said he believed in Shakeel’s character, could have seen himself supporting her politically and that the “Liberals made a mistake” booting her from their nomination race.
Shakeel said the NDP’s decision likely came from the central party. She said the party did not give her a chance to explain.
“They made a decision based on allegations that aren’t even true,” she said. “It’s just the knee-jerk reaction instead of actually looking at the issues and the people involved. They’re making a lot of mistakes.”
She said she was also not contacted for the story from the Sun newspapers.
Shakeel married into a Palestinian family and her children are part-Palestinian. She said it is unfortunate the parties folded on the issue and that something needs to change.
“I want to see a stable and strong Israel and a stable and strong Palestine. My views on Palestinian human rights are being conflated. Just because I critique Israel, or anybody critiques Israel for that matter, it doesn’t make it antisemitic.
“We need to think about their reasons behind that,” she added, “what it actually means for our communities, and what it means for us — those of us who identify as Palestinian, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian, marginalized people, racialized people.”
Shakeel said she will not stop advocating for Palestinian human rights. She said she would still take on an active role in the election, working with advocacy groups like the Ontario Parent Action Network.
“I’m not going away,” she said. “I’m not going to stop advocating for Palestinian human rights … If that’s a threat to people, then let’s have a conversation about it instead of just weaponizing antisemitism.”
